USA > Massachusetts > Suffolk County > Boston > Topographical and historical description of Boston > Part 29
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Taking for granted that Paddock performed his great benevolence in 1762, or about that time, the trees must have been mere saplings when they were first called upon to do public service; and on this occasion they not only made their first appearance in history, but also ran their first risk of mutilation, if not of entire destruction. On Friday, the sixteenth day of May, 1766, there arrived in Boston harbor the brigantine Harrison, Shubael Coffin, master, belonging to "John Hancock, Esq., a principal merchant of the town," in about six weeks from London, bringing the important account of the repeal of the American stamp act, which had received the royal assent on the nineteenth day of the previous March. In compliance with the arrangements made at a general town meeting, held in anticipation of such joyful news, the selectmen of the town met in Faneuil Hall, and appointed Monday, the nineteenth of May, to be passed as a day of general rejoicing for that happy occasion. The day was ushered in, very much in the manner of the present time, by the ringing of bells, the discharge of cannon, the displaying of colors from
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houses and from the masts of the shipping, and by mar- tial music. A royal salute was fired by Captain Pad- dock's train of artillery, and glorious doings were had on the Common. In the evening the rejoicings were after the peculiar fashion of the day, by illuminations and bonfires. A pyramid on the Common, ornamented with patriotic paintings, and lighted by two hundred and eighty lamps, concluded the display of the evening, with a discharge of fireworks; and the rejoicings of the first day were brought to a close by a grand and elegant entertainment given by Mr. Hancock to the genteel part of the town, and a treat to the populace of a pipe of Madeira wine. On the next evening, Liberty Tree, which had been lighted up with forty-five lanterns, was again illuminated with one hundred and eight, in allu- sion to the majority that repealed the odious act. It is traditionally related, also, that Paddock's trees and those on the Common were similarly decorated, and, although they escaped injury on that famous day, it appears from the following advertisement, printed in the Massachusetts Gazette Extraordinary, on Thurs- day, the twenty-second day of May, and re-published in the Evening Post of the twenty-sixth of the same month, that inconsiderate persons had already com- menced indiscretions upon the then harmless row of small trees:
66 THE Row of Trees opposite Mr. Paddock's shop have of late received Damage by persons inadvertently breaking off the limbs of the most flourishing. The youth of both sexes are requested, as they pass that way, not to molest them ; those trees being planted at a con- siderable expense, for an Ornament and Service to the Town. Not one of the trees was injured the Night of General Rejoicing, but last Night several Limbs were broke off."
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From the years 1766 to 1771, it seems that all went well with the trees; but in the latter year the hand of indiscretion was again raised to mar them. The follow- ing advertisement may be found in the Boston Evening Post of Monday, August 26, 1771:
" A GUINEA REWARD
Will be given by the subscriber to any one who shall inform him of the Person or Persons that on Thursday night last cut and hacked one of the Trees opposite his House in Long Acre.
" As said Row of Trees were planted and cultivated at a consider- able expense, it is hoped that all persons will do their Endeavour to discountenance said Practices.
ADINO PADDOCK."
Whether the outrage alluded to as above given was caused in consequence of Paddock's toryism is not known; but it is positively certain that his trees were respected by the British soldiery, during the siege of the town; and when those lawless vandals were dese- crating churches, pulling down meeting-houses for fuel, and discharging their firearms at harmless gravestones, they had grace enough to spare the trees. Paddock is said to have written, many years after the days of the revolution had passed away, to one of his Boston friends, expressing gratitude that the trees for which he had always had a deep solicitude had escaped those days of trial. Their day of doom has not yet come. The earth- quakes have left them unharmed. The great gale of 1815, though it upset many, and marred their propor- tions, did not uproot them so but that they could be restored; nor did the storm of the twenty-ninth of June, 1860, nor the gale of the eighth of September, 1869, destroy any of these venerable trees, although in
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both instances many of their large branches were broken off, and their beauty much impaired. They have passed on flourishingly; the spirit of improvement has alone come near destroying them. In the days of Mayor Armstrong they met with serious injury, when the stone foundation for the iron fence of the Granary Burial-Ground was laid. The roots by which they obtained the greatest part of their nourishment were cut off, and many of their branches began to fail. As time sped, they began to recover from this shock. They had, indeed, scarcely resumed their former con- dition when their roots were deprived of the necessary moisture by a closely -laid brick sidewalk, and of course they again pined. The removal, however, of a portion of the bricks, and allowance of proper moisture, together with an enriched soil, gave them another chance for the continuance of life; and thus they now remain. Far . distant may the day be, when these old friends must be removed from the spot which they have so long occupied and ornamented; and may our city fathers ever regard them as among the cherished objects which must be preserved with the greatest care, as valued heritages that Bostonians have received from the generations that have preceded them.
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CHAPTER XXVIII.
PUBLIC SQUARES.
Washington Square on Fort Hill . . . Ancient Cornhill . . . Bowling Green. . . Bea- con Hill . . . Church Green, and Church Square ... Columbia Square, 1801, named Blackstone and Franklin Squares in 1849 . . . Franklin Place, 1793 . . . Louisburg Square, 1834 . . . Pemberton Square, laid out in 1835, and named in 1838 . . . City Hall Square, 1841, formerly Court Square in 1815 . . . Lowell Square, 1849 . . . South End Squares in 1849-1851, Chester Square, Union Park, Worcester Square . . . Haymarket Square .. . East Boston Squares, Maverick, Central and Belmont Squares . . . South Boston Squares, Tele- graph Hill and Independence Square.
BESIDES the Common and Malls, and the Public Gar- den, there are in Boston several other public grounds known as the Public Squares. These, with a few others of a more private character, should not be omitted in a description of the topography of the city. The ordi- nary squares at the junction of streets are more prop- erly classed with the streets, alleys, lanes, courts and places, and will not, therefore, be taken into considera- tion at the present time, but be reserved for future notice.
In a previous chapter, a description was given of Fort Hill, more particularly as one of the prominent ob- jects of view on approaching Boston. Upon its summit was formerly seen a circular enclosure, surrounded with a square, usually known as Washington Square, and some- times as Washington Place, the circular portion retain- ing the name of Fort Hill, the designation which the
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whole enclosure has borne for very many years. This summit was the ancient Cornhill of the forefathers of the town, and in the olden time had upon it the earliest- built fortification of the peninsula, if not even of the old colony of the Massachusetts Bay. Like all the other prominent eminences of the town, which could be reached by the winds, it was the seat of one of the nu- merous mills erected for the convenience of the towns- people, - this particular one being carried on by the widow Anne Tuthill, who moved it to that situation in the fall of the year 1643, not long after the death of her husband Richard, who had been a very prominent person in town matters. In the years 1740 and 1742 attempts were made to have this place called Bowling Green; and, though the project was at the latter date favorably entertained, it did not succeed, and the hill was allowed to retain its old and well-known name. As early as the year 1803, the circle had been laid out; and during the years 1812 and 1813 efforts were made for improving the general appearance of this then much frequented place. Soon after this the old wooden posts and rails were erected upon it; and these not long after gave way to a neater wooden structure, which was taken down in 1838, and a very neat iron fence com- pleted in its place in July of the same year. The portion of land enclosed contained about 40,000 square feet, the diameter within the fence being about two hundred feet. This was sometimes called Washington Place, though the familiar name of Fort Hill is its true and most pop- ular designation, on account of its old associations. By the Fort Hill improvement this place has been much changed in appearance, and its characteristics entirely lost.
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For many years the Common and Fort Hill, if the burying-grounds are excepted, were the only public places in the peninsula which the towns-people enjoyed for pleasure meetings on gala days; for the South End with its large area of vacant land was too far distant from the settlement, and the square upon Beacon Hill, where the beacon, and subsequently the monument, stood, was altogether too limited in its size, (being only four rods square,) for anything like a promenade, al- though the last mentioned spot was frequently visited, in consequence of the delightful prospect of the harbor and neighboring country which it afforded.
Previous to the year 1715 a small area of land at the junction of Summer street and Blind Lane (the easterly part of Bedford street) was known as Church Green. Why it was so called cannot be inferred; for there was no meeting-house then in its immediate neighborhood nearer than the old building of the Old South Church at the corner of Milk street. The name first appears in the following record taken from the town books, under date of the twentieth of September, 1715:
"In answer to the petition of Sundry of the Inhab- itants who are desirous to erect a New Meeting House, Praying the Town to grant them a Piece of Land suit- able to build the same upon,
" Voted, a grant to Messrs Henry Hill, Eliezur Darby, David Craige, Nicholas Boon, Samuel Adams & their associates and successors for ever, a Piece of Land comonly called Church Green nigh Summer street in Boston of sixty five feet in Length and forty five feet in Breadth (with convenient High Wayes Round the same) for the Erecting thereon an Edifice for a Meeting House for the Publick Worship of God.
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Provided the sd Meeting House be erected and im- proved to that use within the space of Three years next ensuing."
At the same town meeting, the selectmen were empowered to lay out the piece of land, and were directed to make and execute the proper deed of con- veyance, agreeably to the tenor of the grant; which act they performed on the twenty-first of November follow- ing. Of the grantees, Messrs. Hill, Darby and Craige were styled mariners, Boone a bookseller, and Adams a maltster. By the laying out of this land for the New South Meeting-House, Church Green disappeared. To this religious society, the town afterwards gave an additional piece of land, with a very cautious condition (after the prudent manner of Mr. Bulfinch, the noted selectman) ; and upon these lots stood the octagonal stone building, which in the year 1868 was removed for the accommodation of business.
Care must be taken not to confound Church Green with the well-known square for many years known as Church Square, and which surrounded the old Brick Meeting-House of the First Church in Cornhill, oppo- site State street; nor with the more ancient square that for several years environed the most ancient building of the same society, which stood upon the lot now occupied by Brazier's building in State street, and which was sold about two hundred and thirty years ago to an Englishman for one hundred and sixty pounds sterling, to raise means for defraying the expense of re-building the meeting-house that stood where Joy's building now is, and which was destroyed by fire on the second of October, 1711.
At the March meeting in the year 1800, the question
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of laying out the Neck lands came up, and the subject was referred to the selectmen, who reported in March, 1801, presenting a plan, in which the land was divided into streets and lots, the streets being regular and drawn at right angles; " and to introduce variety, a large cir- cular place " was left to be ornamented with trees, which the committee said would "add to the beauty of the town at large, and be particularly advantageous to the inhabitants of this part," the Neck. The " circular place " was called Columbia Square; and in reality was an oval grass plot, bounded by four streets, with Wash- ington street running through its centre -- indeed, the identical territory now included in Blackstone and Franklin Squares, the last of which was for a time called Shawmut Square. The old Columbia Square never became distinguished, excepting its westerly part, which was noted as being the site on which poor Henry Phil- lips (Stonehewer Davis) was so uselessly hung on the thirteenth of March, 1817, for killing Gaspard Dennegri at the Roebuck Tavern, near Faneuil Hall Market House, on the first of December, 1816. This square was for many years much neglected, and remained so until the twenty-first of February, 1849, when its east- erly portion was called Franklin Square, and its west- erly half Blackstone Square, the iron fences which surrounded these being completed in November of the last-mentioned year. Of these, Franklin Square now contains 105;205 square feet, and Blackstone Square 105,000 square feet. In each of these is a fountain, supplied from Cochituate Pond.
Franklin Square must not be confounded with Frank- lin place, just east of the old, and now part of the pres- ent Franklin street. This last was the site of a great
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private undertaking. Originally, being of a marshy and boggy character, it had lain unimproved till the close of the last century, when Joseph Barrell, Esq., a noted merchant of the town, who dwelt in Summer street, laid it out for a pleasure garden, ornamenting it with a fish pond and fountain. In 1792, a plan was formed for building two rows of brick houses in the form of cres- cents, on the tontine principle, and the foundation of these was laid on the eighth of August of the next year. In a short time sixteen comfortable and fashionable houses were erected on the spot, and a small grass plot fenced in and ornamented with a monumental urn commemora- tive of Franklin, the great Bostonian. For this great improvement to the town, its people were indebted to Charles Bulfinch, a gentleman of great enterprise and re- fined taste, and to William Scollay and Charles Vaughan, men eminently distinguished for their public spirit and endeavors in improving the style of building in the town. The urn was removed a few years ago, when the present stone warehouses were erected on the two sides of the place, which is now known as Franklin street, the name of place having been taken from it. This monu- ment was obtained in Bath, England, by Mr. Bulfinch, and sent to this country. It now stands upon the lot on Bellwort path, leading from Walnut avenue in Mount Auburn Cemetery, where are deposited the remains of the most noted of the chairmen of the selectmen of Boston.
Louisburg Square, private property, situated on the western slope of Beacon Hill, and upon a portion of Mr. Blaxton's garden, was laid out about the year 1834. The statue of Aristides was placed in the grass plot in it on the first of December, 1849, and that of Columbus more recently.
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Pemberton Square, also private property, is the site of one of the old peaks of the easterly summit of Beacon Hill, and was laid out in the year 1835; and the sur- rounding land for building lots was sold on the seventh of October. It had its present name assigned to it on the nineteenth of February, 1838.
When the court house on School street was refitted for a City Hall, in the years 1840 and 1841, the buildings in front of it were removed, and the land, the last part of which had been purchased on the fourth of June, 1839, was laid out as a square, and fenced with iron pales. Many persons will undoubtedly remember when Mayor Bigelow in 1851, about the time of the "reign of terror " to the dogs, had the additional pales inserted in the fence, to keep annoying animals from the enclosure. Before the erection of the present new City Hall, the City Hall Squares contained 10,200 square feet of land. The old building, one story high, on School Street, near the burial-ground, occupied many years as a grocery store by Asa Richardson, will be easily recollected, as also will the brick building in its rear, erected by Hon. William Sullivan in 1815, and known as Barristers' Hall. This was named Court Square on the fifteenth of September, 1815, on the completion of Mr. Sullivan's building. The statue of Franklin was inaugurated in front of the old City Hall on the seventeenth of September, 1856, and was finally removed to its present position on the seventh of July, 1865. The iron fence, which was completed in November, 1865, adds much to the neat appearance of the squares. The most westerly of these two squares, that in which the Franklin statue stands, is shaded by a very large triple-thorned acacia. (Gleditschia triacan- thos), one of the largest and most ornamental of the na-
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DESCRIPTION OF BOSTON.
tive forest-trees of America. No ruthless hands should ever lay violence upon this tree, which already vies in size and beauty with those cultivated with much care in some of the palace-gardens and parks near London.
In 1849 a lot of land was purchased in Cambridge street in front of the Meeting-House of the West Church, and laid out into a square. This lot of land contains 5,782 square feet, and was sometimes called Derby Square. On the twelfth of November, 1853, the late Rev. Dr. Charles Lowell set out four oak-trees in the enclosure, the same having been raised from acorns planted at his seat at Elmwood, in Cambridge.
In 1849 much was done during the first year of the mayoralty of Hon. John P. Bigelow towards improving the public lands at the South End of the city; and in 1850, a new ordinance was passed concerning the public lands which gave enlarged powers to the joint standing committee of the City Council. On the seventh of Feb- ruary, of the last-mentioned year, the following order was passed:
" Ordered, that the Joint Standing Committee on Public Lands be authorized to lay out such streets and squares on the public lands, and make such alterations in the lots as the best interests of the city may require; provided such laying out shall not conflict with the rights of private citizens, and be subject to the approval of the Mayor and Aldermen."
The committee who were to carry out this important order consisted of Hon. Mr. Bigelow (the Mayor), Aldermen Samuel S. Perkins and Billings Briggs, and Messrs. Abel B. Munroe, Nathaniel Brewer, Albert T. Minot, Benjamin Beal and Aaron H. Bean of the Com- mon Council. The committee was largely assisted by
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Hon. Peleg W. Chandler, who has so unwaveringly ad- vocated all the recent city improvements in connection with the public lands; and also by a special committee, of which Hon. Henry B. Rogers, then an Alderman, was chairman, and through whose active exertions a high grade for the neck lands was obtained, which added much to the value of the territory for private dwellings. Plans and estimates were made by Messrs. E. S. Ches- brough and William P. Parrott, skilful and experienced engineers; and from this time the South End began to be the most desirable part of the city for genteel residences. About this time, and in consequence of the above-mentioned order of the city council, several squares were laid out at the South End, mainly through the instrumentality of Mr. Minot, a member of the com- mittee. Of these, Chester Square, which contains 57,- 860 square feet of land, and East Chester and West Chester Parks (called avenues by vote passed in 1869), were established in 1850, and the neighboring house-lots were sold on the thirtieth of October, 1850. Union Park (originally laid out as Weston street) contains an area of 16,000 feet, and its lots were sold at auc- tion on the eleventh of June, 1851. Worcester Square, of the same size, was sold on the seventeenth of May, 1851.
Haymarket Square has a much older date for its establishment than the South End Squares; but its fountain was erected in 1851.
The squares at East Boston were established about the same time. Maverick Square, containing 22,500 square feet, of which 4,398 are enclosed within an iron fence; Central Square, 49,470 square feet, 32,310 en- closed; and Belmont Square, 10,200 square feet.
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DESCRIPTION OF BOSTON.
At South Boston, 190,000 feet of Telegraph Hill, independent of the reservoir, were enclosed with a fence in 1851 and 1852; and Independence Square, between Broadway, Second, M, and N streets, containing about six and a half acres, was established by a vote of the Board of Aldermen on the thirtieth of November, 1857. A strip of land east of the City Point Primary School- House contains 9,510 feet, surrounded with an iron fence.
All of these public squares are kept in excellent condition, under the superintendence of the Committee on the Common and Public Squares; and pains are taken to make them ornaments to the city, and pleasant places of resort for the inhabitants.
CHAPTER XXIX.
SPRINGS, TOWN PUMPS, AND RESERVOIRS.
Boston selected as the Seat of the Governor and Company in Consequence of its Springs of Water . . . The Springs . . . The Great Spring in Spring Lane . . . The Ancient Springate, and its Early Residents . . . Blaxton's Spring near Louis- burg Square . . . Spring Street Spring . . . West Hill Spring .. . Other Springs .. . Boston Mineral Spring in Hawkins Street . . . Thomas Venner's Well, and the Old Town Pump in Old Cornhill, 1650 . . . The Last Appearance of the Old Well ... Origin of the Old Town Pump in Dock Square, 1774 . .. Wil- liam Franklin's Old Well in 1653 . . . Other Old Public Pumps . . . Reservoirs ... Jamaica Pond Aqueduct, 1795.
WHILE the forefathers of the town were temporarily seated at Charlestown (the ancient Mishawum of the aborigines), and were looking around for a permanent settlement, they were considerably distressed for a suffi- ciency of pure spring water of easy accessibility. On their then small peninsula they had a good situation, as far as the site was concerned; for it was in an extremely pleasant and salubrious locality, and was nearly sur- rounded by an arm of a navigable harbor, and by inlets of salt water possessing deep and broad channels. But in Charlestown there was a great deficiency, as far as could be then known, of the requisite springs of fresh water; indeed, there was only one known spring, and that afforded a brackish and insufficient supply, and was far remote from the settlement, being upon the salt- water flats, and only accessible at low tide, and conse- quently, giving but a scanty quantity, was a precarious
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reliance. It was in this emergency that Mr. William Blaxton, who had for some time been a resident upon the peninsula called by the Charlestown people Tri- mountaine, and who had discovered a remarkable spring of water there that more than supplied all his needs, very generously communicated the information to his suffering countrymen across the river, and pressingly urged them to take up their abode on his side, upon the ancient Shawmut. The solicitations of the reverend gentleman prevailed, and soon after the death of Mr. Isaac Johnson, one of the most important men of the new enterprise, the colonists moved over to Boston, as they had named the site of their new town, and com- menced the settlement which undoubtedly they consid- ered peculiarly well adapted for the beginning of a large commercial emporium.
As the springs induced the Governor and Company of the Massachusetts Bay - in other words, the Massa- chusetts colony - to make their principal settlement at Boston, and as several of them have been noted in their day, a few words concerning them may not be out of place in the local descriptions attempted in these chapters.
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